This Is Such a Pity

For the longest time, all I'd been hearing from Weezer was that Beverly Hills is where I want to be. Just now, however I finally sat - actually lay - down to listen to the rest of the album, titled Make Believe , and I have to say I'm diggin' it. It's no Blue Album or Pinkerton, but it certainly trumps Maladroit, which has grown on me anyway.

After some quick Weezer research it also appears that subsequent singles were released from the same album as Beverly Hills, so I guess it just goes to show how little I listen to the radio these days. I would have linked to every single Weezer video posted online, but I figure you folks can always do that at your leisure.

Since it's freezing in my room and my mouth tastes like a crypt, I'm going to take this opportunity to brush my teeth and fall asleep to some Italian language learning cds. Buona notte.

All Is Quiet

Second things first: Happy New Year to all those reading and to those who don't as well. First things second then, a New Year's joke related to the fact that this is being read and written on a computer screen. I present my New Year's resolution: 1280x1024. Actually I think mine is actually 1280x864, but you get the joke right? Oh man, it's nice to know that in 2008 I am just as funny as 2007. Apologies to the two people already subjected to this joke should they be reading.

I know between my last post and now there are plenty of things to cover but I'll stick to today's events while they are fresh in my mind. Today I had some compartment testing. I'd had this done in the past to test for an affliction known as chronic exertional compartment syndrome. If it interests you, well, mayoclinic sums it all up pretty damn well there. So it had been about four years since I'd had this testing done, so I had forgotten what it really felt like. I did recall that last time they shaved patches out of my lower legs before testing the pressures with a needle and so I was all prepped to look like a strategically shaved monkey again, but alas not this time. Turns out the guy who did it last time did it for no good reason.

Anyway, they inject some fluid into each of three compartments: anterior, lateral, and posterior (technically there are two posterior compartments, but are you really that interested?) and then test the baseline pressure. The pressure is checked again after exercise and then, once more, after about five minutes of rest. I fully admit to being a wussy around needles, but this is different. Because the needle is actually plunged into the muscles in each compartment, well, you feel the needle poking around. I honestly don't remember it being that bad last time, but this time I was limping about afterwards because it made all the muscles feel stiff and overworked. Only the left leg was tested, but I think I should have opted to have both legs done just so that I might have fallen over when I got up. Really though, when they do that deep posterior compartment you feel like they are yanking at the fibers all along your calf muscles. I don't know how the junkies can do it. Delicious.

I hope everyone's settling into 2008 nicely and I'd like to remind you all that I am still taking donations for legs, but only below the knee. High five.

Vanity

Today's events got me thinking about vanity or, more specifically, vanity license plates. Perhaps it was because I was simply more attentive on the road today, but there seemed to be a surfeit of the aforementioned objects in circulation on interstate 84 in the westbound direction.

A lot of them weren't too special, things like GRAMP6 - whatever the hell that means - and GOLDY 1. There were several more I can't recall, but there was one tandem on the Saw Mill Parkway that I won't soon forgot. In front of us was "MMMBOP," which I can only assume was in homage to the original Hanson hit as there aren't too many other instances (read: zero) in which I can recall such a word coming up. Unfortunately, the appearance of MMMBOP, in her silvery late 80s Nissan, was rather disappointing, as she was somewhat generic and dumpy, lacking a certain "je ne sais quoi" as I literally don't know what I was hoping for or expecting from her appearance.

Situated ahead of MMMBOP at the stoplight was none other than an SUV with the moniker "ILOVEBI," or rather, that is what my eyes wanted to see. It did have a delightful Brick Tamland-like flair. It was then pointed out by my cousin that the plate did in fact say "ILOVELBI," a far more sensible vanity plate to witness, especially given LBI's popularity as a vacation spot. Still, I never looked back to confirm these were in fact the letters, and I hold out some hope for ILOVEBI as the second "L" would represent an eighth character, violating what I thought to be a seven-character limit on United States' license plates.

Aside from that, Juno is a kick-ass movie that I highly recommend.

Running: For the Retards

Last night, feeling particularly stiff and sore from a day of standing, I decided a short run was in order. This placed me on the main street of neighboring Highland Park somewhere in the vicinity of nine pm. As I passed a newly minted Papa John's a guy yelled out of his truck: "Retard." Maybe it was because I was wearing shorts? I will forever be baffled as to why the sight of someone running incites anger and/or the need for commentary. I've been called a lot of things while running, had things thrown at me, had cars attempt to hit me, even been stopped to turn on a random family's lights during some Jewish holiday, and retard intrigues me a good deal.

Incidentally, I wanted to make the Papa John's link for something toilet related, because I love puns, and I stumbled upon this gem of a website simply by googling "best toilet." I actually don't know how much of a gem it is, but I'm optimistic and plan to give it a little more attention sometime soon. Lest I not post for a bit, Happy Holidays a few days early to some, and belatedly to the Jews.

That's a wrap.

Don't I Not Know You From Somewhere?

You know those moments you are walking behind someone and you probably haven't seen them in a while and you keep wondering if you should say something or not since however awkward it might be it's sure to be less awkward than when they inevitably turn around and one of you has to make some move because at that point you're so close no one can continue the denial? It's not like when you're walking towards one another and you both see each other and mutually pretend as if you just never happened to be looking in that person's direction. Only then they turn around and it isn't that person but they give you a weird look almost as if they knew what you were thinking behind them that whole time. Yeah, that is such a relief. Sometimes I worry about strangers judging me but in that situation I'm just so happy it's not some schmuck I have to go through trivialities with that I overcome my standard anxieties. Chances are, if you don't want to talk to me, I don't want to be talking to you either, so don't feel bad when you ignore me because you really are doing both of us a favor.

Great tales like this vacuum cleaner-related incident always brighten my day. Nothing like a first-hand account of the tale. Also, here are some interesting musings on living longer by eating less, among other things. Oh, and because who doesn't like to read about dinosaurs, especially fossilized remains beyond the standard skeleton.

Six Pack Abs

Everybody wants them. Your mother, your best friend, your enemies, your neighbor's dog, your girlfriend's cat…everyone. And everyone has them. They just might be hidden under layers of fat, a little thing the fancy medical community likes to call adipose tissue. Sometimes, when I am in to see a doctor, which is pretty often actually, I will throw around big words like that. Also anterior tibialis, fasciotomy, sesamoid, and nerves. These words are to demonstrate my expert medical knowledge.

Before I continue I have to say that I recently received a comment telling me that I was an idiot and to do more research. The first part is true and I don't believe in research, just hearsay. It is for that reason that everything preceding and post-ceding this interlude paragraph is pure, hard, researched fact. For some reason comments go to my spam folder, as do all those great bride ads. Periodically I have to scan my spam for this very reason and as a result I've got things in the works to take the hand of a fine Ukranian bride who isn't Oksana Baiul. When she told me she was a "woman-fire" who could fill my life with "bright impressions" promising "mornings' breakfasts in the bed," I was sold. The last line was the clincher because I need someone like me, who just can't do breakfast at any other time than the AM, no matter what diner's and IHOP have to say.

Right, so since with good lighting and an airbrush two years ago I had something akin to six pack abs, I feel I am fully qualified to tell the rest of the world how they too can have a wondrous midsection. The first secret is diet. You must always eat whatever you want, whenever you feel hungry. Binging will be a key component of your ab diet, but purging is not a good idea unless you are on the verge of alcohol poisoning and would otherwise need hospitalization. Hospitals are expensive, even when you have health insurance, and none of that money is likely to go towards six-pack abs. Like I was saying, eat whatever you want, so long as you don't actually want to eat anything. That's not true. For your regular diet you'll want cereals. Costco is a good place to get them, although the variety can be spotty. If you have a Wegman's in your area: jackpot. I really like Frosted Mini-Wheats as a staple. Peanut butter and banana, peanut butter and jelly, turkey and muenster: they will be your closest afternoon associates. Doritos and Edy's ice cream are also essential. Cycle flavors of both to reduce boredom. Another little trick is 1,000 plus abdominal related motions per day. These must all be done at once. Any incidental and inadvertent abdominal motions, like humping, that you may do throughout the day are optional, but not discouraged. Cardiovascular activity, often deemed cardio by the n00b fitness community, on the other hand leads often to injury and is widely discouraged.

The last key component, which actually surpasses illicit drug use, is genetics. But until you can get your hands on a Delorean, and enough plutonium and speed (velocity, not the drug, though amphetamine will boost your metabolism, but be sure to hydrate Carlton) to create 1.21 jigawatts of energy, you'll just have to be jealous of the bum in Central Park who has the body of a Greek (not Roman) sculpture. Everything in this article is verified by fitness professional John Basedow.

First Snow

So the first snow of the season was actually this past Sunday, at least for the mid-Atlantic, but it's snowing right now too and so I figured why not say a few words on it. Snow really is beautiful when it first falls, but becomes almost universally hideous the moment humans interact with it. I am not denying the wonderful joy and purity of things like the snow tunnel or fort and snowball fight, but when a car rolls through and turns snow to slop that quickly accumulates filth, the magic has been pooped on. It's this sort of ultimate contrast between purity and beauty one minute, and filth and depravity the next. Sort of.

As a onetime and now sometime runner, I must say that a run through the snow is a glorious experience. Long distance running can be a rather solitary endeavor as it is. I consider it a sought after solitary. So when you add in temperatures so cold that there is an eerie silence, where the crunch of a foot through snow sounds like Cap'n Crunch inside your head, its a wonderful and humbling moment. This is inevitably more enjoyable at night when the lights of houses are one of the few signs that there is civilization besides you out there. And the signature crunch I described happens only when the temperature teeters around freezing to create an icy/crystalline snow more akin to a massive accumulation of miniscule pieces of hail than the soft powder that gives barren trees their Christmasy allure. There's something glorious in leaving the first indents in fresh snow and then turning back to see now one set of prints. Sometimes I would match my strides in reverse to land in those first marks. Of course, there wasn't really enough snow for that this time, but I'm calling on the past.

And since I've no place to go, let it snow.